Comedian Ayo Edebiri To Replace Jenny Slate As Voice of Missy In Netflix’s ‘Big Mouth’
Variety is reporting that writer, producer, comedian and actor Ayo Edebiri has been tapped by Netflix as Jenny Slate’s replacement as the character voice of Missy in its animated puberty comedy series ‘Big Mouth.’
This comes two months after Slate announced that she will no voice the role, stemming from the systemic racism that has touched multiple industries in the wake of recent police killings of African-Americans.
“I was definitely a very uncomfortable child, so I think the show speaks to that and a lot of those feelings, which still resonate with me as an adult,” Edebiri tells Variety. “I’m back home in my childhood bedroom right now and on my bookshelf in between ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is Bill Clinton’s autobiography and Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and a translation of ‘The Iliad’ in Latin. I was a true dork. So I don’t think I have to go too far to connect with Missy.”
While Slate will continue to voice Missy for the majority of the fourth season (the premiere date of which has yet to be announced), Edebiri will take over the role in the penultimate episode. She booked the role just a few weeks ago and has already recorded her Season 4 dialogue. She also joined the writers’ room of the show for the fifth season — a job she actually booked and began working first, given the schedule of breaking stories and penning scripts.
“As a writer my goal is never to figure out, ‘Oh let’s get myself a part on this show.’ When I’m writing, I’m serving my boss’ vision and I want to be helpful in whatever ways I can be and lend my ideas and my jokes and whatever else they need to that,” Edebiri says. But she admits “because I had the experience of being in the room and knowing the story, I think that helped with the comfort level” when stepping into the recording booth, especially on such an accelerated timeline.
Co-star Nick Kroll says, having a Black actor portray Missy in “Big Mouth” will allow the show to “tell more nuanced stories about Missy’s identity.” Although he admits that when they first created the character it was, “OK this is a dorky girl who happens to be Black,” the conversation has shifted through the years and the writers’ room has encouraged more of an exploration of Missy’s Blackness.
Edebiri was a writer on NBC’s “Sunnyside.” A stand-up comedian, she also co-hosts “Iconography,” a podcast, for Forever Dog. Her other upcoming screen credits include co-producing “Mulligan,” Robert Carlock and Tina Fey’s upcoming animated series for Netflix; voicing the lead role in the upcoming animated series “We Lost Our Human” for Netflix, and writing and acting in the second season of “Dickinson” for Apple TV Plus.